The Male Perspective: Stuck in a Sexual Malaise?

It would be wonderful to think that your relationship with your partner will always have the sexual potency of napalm, but as life has a tendency to demonstrate that is rarely the case. At some point you, your partner, or both of you will likely regard sex as if it is a chore. The question is how do the two of your move out of this sexual malaise and back to a place where sex was a vital ingredient to your relationship.

To begin both you and your partner have to be open and willing to discuss the situation and have a desire to change it. This problem cannot be fixed by making demands on each other; there has to be a sincere desire to improve your sexual relationship. What both of you need to agree on is when your sexual relationship changed and entered this malaise state, what the reason for the change was, and what you’re both open to altering to make things better. Hearing what your partner says could be difficult, but if there isn’t the freedom to be honest it will be impossible to get out of this sexual rut.

Next each of you needs to honestly look at whether you’re both still attracted to each other at the moment. There is a tendency in relationships where each other person lets themselves go. Men tend to dress more like slobs and put on weight. Women stop shaving and also put on weight. To figure out if this has happened with you and your partner just look at photographs from when you first start dating and think back to all the things you used to do to try to make yourself attractive to each other. You can’t change overnight, but you can each start dressing better and re-improving your hygiene, which will in turn increase the amount you feel sexually attracted to each other.

If you have recently had a child this can definitely impact on your sex life. Often the belief is that men have less interest in their partners because of the weight they put on during their pregnancy and that is sometimes a factor. However, in many cases it is often that a man’s perception of their partner changes after a child has been born that has the greater impact. No longer are you the girl he was sexually turned on to when you were dating; now you’re the mother of his child. Thus, many men have trouble being able to see their partners in the context of a sexual being because they feel it would be unseemly being they’re now the mother of their child. If you believe this has happened, you need to make an effort to remind him that you’re still the woman he was sexually attracted to. Think back to some of the things you used to do to drive him sexually crazy and resurrect them. If you ensure that the two of you get time alone together without the children you’ll likely be able to reinvigorate your sexual spark.

Sometimes sexual malaise can come from boredom with the familiarity of the routine associated with the act of sex itself. You always have sex in the same place, use the same sexual positions, and the foreplay is either almost nonexistent or very much a consistent routine. Thus, there are no surprises and the two of you are almost sleep walking through it. The only way things will improve in this situation is if you do something different. Try having sex in a different place, try other sexual positions and vary the foreplay. Role playing can be a great way to spice up your love life. It can involve wearing a costume, playing a character, or just trying an accent. You’ll be amazed the difference one of you using an accent can make in improving your sex life.

Getting away somewhere you and your partner can renew yourselves can make a huge difference too. A his and her day at the spa has been well known to help jumpstart a dormant love life as has a trip to an exotic getaway. The key is to associate your sexual life with something fun and adventurous so that in your mind’s eye you’ll always link the two.

You and your partner going to sex therapy can be an effective tool for improving your sex life if both of you are open to it. Many men are reluctant to participate in sex therapy because they feel that it will simply be an exercise in placing all the blame for the problems on him and possibly as a threat on their manhood. So if your partner is reluctant to participate in sex therapy you need to sit down and explain to him exactly why you want him to attend with it. Do not talk in generalities, but rather be specific about the things you want to work on with your partner. You need to convince your partner of why it’s a good idea. If you make the survival of your relationship contingent on his participation, than the sex therapy will not work because he will only be attending because of that threat. He needs to believe that sex therapy is a good idea as much as you do and placing the survival of your relationship on attending it won’t do that.

Lastly, simply reminiscing can be an effective way to remind you and your partner of the attraction you felt for each other. So going through old videos, photos, and letters can re-ignite sexual attraction and remind you each of why you fell in love in the first place.